Resident Evil is responsible for some mind-destroying horrors, most of them sold to loyal fans.

This game is why later consoles learned the Red Ring of Death in self-defense

When you have to fill two dozen games with monsters and “brainless zombie” is your most original idea, and you’ve already used it, you’re going to have a few missteps. Resident Evil had more missteps than a drunken hopscotch tournament on a minefield, and the results were uglier. And less fun to play.

Albinoid

Resident Evil: Code Veronica

A picture is worth a thousand words and for the Albinoid every single one is written on a sexual harassment report.

Why do we even have game ratings if disembodied genitals are going to get a Teen rating?

That looks like a slide from Todd Akin’s sex ed class, an independent-attack wombgina flying around to murder people and cash welfare checks. And it’s even worse in action.

Should…we be seeing this?

How something can look like both a vagina and a rampaging penis is beyond us. That’s a magic eye picture from Freud’s nightmares. Capcom designers manage to screw up even the things designed for screwing, in such a way that it’s not fun. It does get better when it grows up, but only because it would have to exist and be behind you to get any worse.

Japan’s obsession with genital monsters is somehow more horrifying as intended horror than as porn

That thing’s head is an ass with the world’s worst case of mutant piles. It’s also the dumbest monster in the series, as you might expect from a monster which exchanged its brainstem for a backup colon. Its only attack is electrifying a huge pool of water. A pool with a large, dry walkway around it, meaning it’s less a boss fight than a test to see if you can remember the fire button. It achieves impossible levels of stupidity, creating a new situation where being Aquaman would be even worse.

William Birkin

Resident Evil 2

William Birkin is a giant tentacle monster programmed to impregnate his own daughter.  A Capcom game designer figured that was faster than going door to door to introduce himself as a sex offender. His primary feature is a giant eyeball, and while we want to give him bonus marks for choosing a non-genital organ to focus on, we can’t, because giving a video game monster a giant eyeball is like giving a minesweeper giant clown shoes.

A giant eyeball is only scary when you’re playing hide and seek, a game he permanently ruined by playing it with his daughter (see above). The resulting lack of depth perception explains why he repeatedly brings claws to a gunfight. He later evolves into, no, I can’t use any word which implies any sort of process or function to what he turns into. Birkin’s final form was vomited out by someone dared to create something worse-looking than Goatse, but without the same level of effort.

Now you know why the Sarlacc monster spends most of its life hiding in a hole in the desert

The Moth

Resident Evil: Code Veronica

The Moth In Code Veronica is the embodiment of everything evil about the corporation responsible. Not Umbrella’s T-virus, but Capcom’s laziness. The Moths don’t do much damage but can poison you, slowing you down, or lay eggs on your back, forcing you to wait for them to hatch. They roost in a central corridor you have to pass several times, but they respawn so killing them is a waste of ammunition. There’s no exciting fight or counter-strategy: you just have to grit your teeth and put up with the time-wasting rubbish. But if you’ve played this far into Code Veronica you’re well practiced at that.

Claire Redfield wondering if Capcom have even heard of imagination

The “infinite poison” effect is so annoying that the game puts an equally infinite source of blue herbs to cure it in the same corridor. They knew the moth was broken, but like a lazy student’s homework, instead of fixing the obvious problem they added extra bullshit to make it look like they’d done more work.

Thanatos

Resident Evil: Outbreak

Zombie Speedo.

Zombie Speedo

Zombie Speedo. If I could add to that phrase I’d be a bestselling horror writer, or at least believe I was one from inside the padded cell. This corpsausage wrapper is a puzzle of more unfolding horror than the Hellraiser cube: every other naked Resident Evil mutant becomes asexual or entirely-genital, but they wanted to make it very clear that this specific giant rotting corpse chasing you HAS a package, and it’s so horrible that even the monster who stabs you to death isn’t allowed to show it. But it’s there, and it’s getting closer.

Massive claw, bleeding stump, and the scariest detail is still how the Speedo is EVEN SNUGGER

The worst part is that the concept art had Thanatos as “Business Zombie, Gentleman Undead,” but a Capcom employee said “No, I want to see more of his naked inner thighs as he mutilates the innocent.” And that person got paid instead of arrested.

Nautilus and the Torpedo Kids

Resident Evil: Dead Aim

This monster is so terrible that the Pluto from the same game didn’t make the list, and that’s a zombie who has his skull cut open to expose his weak point brain.

He’s actually glad he can’t see himself, or anything else in this game

Especially this

The mandatory files (every Resident Evil game is legally required to have at least five hours of reading to counter the intelligence effects of the rest of the game) say it reproduces asexually, but this thing is actively anti-sexual. It’s an evil vagina firing out sperm in order to kill things. This may be the world’s truest zombie, because it’s genuinely horrifying and is the exact opposite of human life.

Now read Luke’s cogent analysis of The Worst Resident Evil Movie Ever Made!

Not the triplet fantasy we envisioned

Luke McKinney also learns What Star Trek Can Teach Us About Video Games and 7 Tips For Not Screwing Up College. Follow him on Tumblr, and he responds to every single tweet.

Hint: this one. It’s this one

Luke’s got more video game figures who should have been left on the drawing board with The 9 Least Original Fighting Game Characters. Or see which movie he thinks is The Worst Resident Evil Movie Ever Made.